Sonic boom warning given for SpaceX cargo mission to space station Monday night
SpaceX is set to send up 6,000 pounds of cargo on a resupply mission to the International Space Station on Monday night, and the rocket booster's return trip could bring a sonic boom to parts of Central Florida.
A Falcon 9 on the CRS-31 mission is aiming for liftoff from Kennedy Space Center's Launch Pad 39-A at 9:29 p.m. with backups on Tuesday at 9:06 p.m. and Wednesday at 8:44 p.m.
Space Launch Delta 45's weather squadron forecasts a 70% chance for favorable launch conditions, which drops to 40% if delayed to Tuesday, and 60% if delayed to Wednesday.
The first-stage booster is making its fifth flight, having notably flown two human spaceflight missions with Crew-8 in March and September's Polaris Dawn flight as well as two Starlink missions.
It will attempt a recovery return back on land back at nearby Cape Canaveral Space Force Station's Landing Zone 1 about eight minutes after liftoff.
SpaceX warns that one or more sonic booms may be heard in Brevard, Orange, Osceola, Indian River, Seminole, Volusia, Polk, St. Lucie, and Okeechobee counties.
The cargo Dragon is making its fifth resupply mission to the ISS, and if it launches would arrive after about a 13-hour flight docking Tuesday at 10:15 a.m.
It will remain attached to the ISS until December when it will return for a splashdown back on Earth, possibly one of the final times a Dragon spacecraft lands off the coast of Florida before SpaceX shifts Dragon recovery operations back to California in 2025.
Among the 6,000 pounds of food, supplies and equipment are some new experiments.
They include the solar wind Coronal Diagnostic Experiment, some Antarctic moss to observe the effects of cosmic radiation and microgravity on plants, a device to test cold welding of metals in microgravity, and an investigation that studies how space impacts different materials.
The spacecraft will dock with the ISS at the recently vacated parking spot on the front-facing port of the ISS' Harmony module. Four of the seven crew currently on board the ISS had climbed on board the SpaceX Crew Dragon Freedom on Sunday to move it to the space-facing port on Harmony and make room for the cargo module's arrival, an operation that took less than an hour.
NASA's Starliner astronauts to achieve feat ... technically ... during SpaceX Dragon relocation
The Dragon shuffle was of note as it marked the first time NASA astronauts have flown on board both Boeing's Starliner and SpaceX's Dragon spacecraft. That's because among the four crew on board Freedom were not only the two members who flew up to the ISS in September, but also the two NASA astronauts of the Crew Flight Test that had arrived to the ISS on Boeing's Starliner back in June.
Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, who were left behind on the ISS when NASA opted to send the Starliner back to Earth in September minus its crew for safety reasons, are now officially part of the SpaceX Crew-9 crew, in addition to being members of Expedition 72 on the ISS.
They took the two seats on Crew Dragon Freedom that they will use when they finally get to return to Earth next February.
The CRS-31 launch adds onto the already record-breaking year on the Space Coast, and would be the 75th from all launch providers. SpaceX will have flown 70 of those with United Launch Alliance having flown the other five.
It's the 19th launch from KSC for the year with the other 56 from among the pads at Cape Canaveral.
